The Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Rickey Tarfa has withdrawn the N5bn fundamental rights enforcement suit he filed against telecommunications giant, MTN Nigeria and four others over an alleged violation of his right to privacy.
A lawyer from his chambers, Olatunde Oladele on Wednesday appeared before Justice Mohammed Idris on with an exparte application to discontinue the case.
Mr Oladele gave no reason for Mr Tarfa’s decision to withdraw the case.
Lawyers to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Wahab Shittu & Rotimi Oyedepo who were also present at the court did not oppose the withdrawal of the suit but urged the court to award a punitive cost against Mr Tarfa.
“My Lord, we have no objection to the discontinuance of the suit but we want the court to award a punitive cost against the applicant; our names have been flying around in the major newspapers since yesterday,” Shittu said.
But Oladele argued that the EFCC’s lawyers had no right of reply because his application was an ex parte application.
Besides, he said the respondents could not be demanding for cost because Tarfa had not serve them with the suit.
But Shittu argued that since the filing of the suit was widely reported in the newspapers, it was tantamount to serving the respondents by substituted means.
In a short ruling Justice Idris struck out the case and ordered Mr Tarfa to pay a cost of N10,000 each in favour of the five respondents.
The respondents are the EFCC, its Acting Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, a Benenois national, Mrs Rashidatou Abdou, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) and MTN Nigeria Communications Limited.
Mr Tarfa had filed the suit after his arrest on February 5, 2016 by EFCC operatives on the premises of the Lagos State High Court in Igbosere area of Lagos Island.
The EFCC had alleged that he hid two suspects in his car to prevent their arrest.
The commission subsequently seized his two mobile phones and his Mercedez Benz SUV.
But in his N5bn fundamental rights enforcement action, the S.A.N had urged the court to declare that the respondents violated his right to privacy protected by Section 37 of the Constitution, when, without a court order, MTN allegedly made the call log on his mobile line, 08034600000, available to the EFCC and the other respondents, who in turn allegedly released the information to Sahara Reporters and other online mediums.
The Senior Advocate had also urged the court to hold that the respondents acted unlawfully when they accessed his bank details, clients’ information, private and confidential information contained in his iPhone 6 and Samsung 6 without a court order or any reasonable cause.
He had urged the court to award N5bn damages against the respondents in his favour, stressing that no amount of money could adequately redress the “unquantifiable and irreparable damage done to him, his reputation, his business and his goodwill.”